Feb 27 1968
From The Space Library
NASA Administrator James E. Webb began testimony on President's authorization request for NASA's FY 1969 budget before Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. He outlined significant NASA achievements and said "remarkable series of successes shows how far we have come since the beginning of the Space Age ten years ago. . . . Today . . . success is treated almost routinely, no matter how difficult the task or how significant the achievement." Describing budget as "a compromise," he said President "was forced, in spite of his conviction as to the importance of a larger effort in aeronautics and space, to accept reductions.. . . This means that for NASA 1968 and 1969 are . . . years in which we will be completing programs started in previous years and endeavoring to make limited further advances. Under these conditions we will devote a major effort to stabilizing our organization and the resource base we have built." (Testimony)
NASA's university program, operating at lower level because of reduced funding, was also changing to meet changing requirements, NASA Associate Administrator for Organization and Management Harold B. Finger told Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. Emphasis in predoctoral trainee grants had shifted from earlier need to replenish "national reservoir of engineers and scientists who had advanced training in space sciences" to "current and future needs . . . for engineers trained in design and development of complex engineering systems . . and for people trained in management . . . of large-scale research and development programs." Finger declared "importance of the university participation in the nation's space program is equal to or possibly greater now than in the early 1960's," but cited decreases in predoctoral trainee grants to 75 in FY 1968 from about 800 in 1967 and over 1,300 in 1966. No new funding awards for new university facilities were anticipated for FY 1968 or FY 1969. Multidisciplinary research had been reduced to about one-half 1967 level. In Technology Utilization program, Finger believed some of greatest benefits would come from "the storehouse of information that we are building that permits easy public access to the large masses of data and information" in many disciplines. (Testimony)
NASA Assistant Administrator for Administration William E. Lilly presented NASA's FY 1969 administrative operations (AO) budget to Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. He said $648.2 million was requested and "the same stringent measures that were required in FY 1968 to operate at a level of $628 million have been continued into FY 1969." (Testimony)
NASA Assistant Administrator for Space Science and Applications, Dr. John E. Naugle, testifying before House Committee on Science and Astronautics' Space Science and Applications Subcommittee, said Nimbus B would be launched in meteorological flight program in spring 1968. Nimbus D continued on schedule for 1970 launch as major step in charting earth atmosphere with new techniques. Nimbus E and F were planned for 1971 and 1973. First of next-generation meteorological satellites (Tiros M) would be available for launch for ESSA in 1969, providing in single spacecraft both stored picture data for global use and local readout of cloud photos, day and night. Dr. Naugle foresaw "in more distant future the possibility that several economic applications of satellite technology can be combined on single, multiple purpose satellites, thus achieving economy through the sharing of many basic spacecraft systems." (Testimony)
British Minister of Technology Anthony W. Benn announced in House of Commons that U.K. would underwrite production of Anglo-French Concorde supersonic aircraft with $180- to $240-million loan for working capital, bringing total U.K. commitment to more than $1 billion. He later revealed first test flight would be delayed until summer 1968. First flight of U.S. SST had been postponed until 1972 [see Feb. 22]. (Lee, NYT, 2/28/68, 5)
MIT physicist Dr. Irwin I. Shapiro, speaking at American Physical Society meeting in Boston, said he and associates had successfully tested refined radar technique that might prove validity of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Using 20-ft-dia Haystack, Mass., dish antenna, scientists observed impulses which they bounced off of Venus and Mercury as planets passed behind sun. Results, which confirmed theory's prediction that signals would be slowed down slightly by gravitational pull, were more precise than those from previous tests but were not clear enough to resolve completely debate on theory's validity. Dr. Shapiro believed greater precision could be achieved. (Sullivan, NYT, 2/28/68, 22; O'Toole, W Post, 2/28/68, 1)
NAA Executive Director, M/G B. E. Allen (USAF, Ret.), in Washington, D.C., ceremony presented awards to Allen Bourdon, William Diehl, and Ernest Hall, last three living civilian flight instructors of World War I air service, for "their patriotism, devotion to duty, and capability as pilots [who performed] an outstanding service toward our achievement of victory in World War I." (NAA News)
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